KhakiBoy Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 My shopping experience with Best Buy was MUCH better than that of CompUSA! Only bad thing about my BB trip was I had to get there earlier which meant more time out in the cold. After my Comp shopping trip, I went through the BB parking lot and saw there weren't too many people in line yet, not even across the entire front of the store. So I came home to drop off my stuff and recoup. I also went online and ordered an item from Comp that was sold out in-store. I got back to BB at 3:30, grabbing the last parking spot in the lot, leaving me 1.5 hours to stand out in the 12 degree weather. They did had out tickets for the big items, and on the back of the ticket packet was a store map with the section highlighted where that item is located. I wasn't going for any of the ticketed items though. Tickets for the cheap desktop and laptop were gone by the time they got to us (I'd say there were about 100 people in line ahead of me). Once several people got their tickets they left, so the line moved up some. I started about half-way across the parking lot and by 4:30 I had moved up to the end of the store front, on the sidewalk. I went in and grabbed the ATI Radeon X700 Pro video card first. Then grabbed the Netgear Wireless router and desktop card. Swung over to software to pick up World of Warcraft. The one item I couldn't find was the Dynex 800va UPS. They weren't in the UPS aisle. Asked one SA but he just pointed me to that same aisle. Asked another guy at the end of that aisle and he pointed me to where the pallet was. Grabbed that and on my way to the checkout I grabbed Nero 7 Ultra Edition. The line for the checkout was much better and more organized than at Comp. By the time I got in line it was half-way back across the front lanes. So 1 1/2 loops. Not bad at all. It moved fast too, much faster than Comp. In no time at all I was at the checkout! I did hold the line up a bit as that register didn't have a key to remove the security lock on my video card. I was in and out in 30 minutes! Much better than the 1:45 minutes it took me at Comp.
Nautical Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 I got to BB at 1145 and was about the 35th person in line. Overall it was very organized and I was at the register by 530. The only downside was the literal STAMPEDE of getting into the store. I didn't even have to walk...i was pretty much pushed through. Now for some sleep...
nikov3 Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 i went to BB got there at 10:40, 40 people ahead of me(probably 20 of em were switchers with their friends who were the cars) it was freezing and couldnt feel my legs at 12 and just left
felixdacat Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 I got to BB at 5:00 and went to the back where my donuts, coffee, and personal shopper were waiting. I was out of there before 5:30. Note that I did not get the doorbusters such as the computer, but got most of the other great AR deals and the mp3 player. went to walmart , got bikes and presents for my nieces and I was home by 6am. Off to walgreens at 7. I dont know why more people did not use the personal shopper. When I left there was still a line outside BB, and these are the people that did not get the doorbusters, I am sure. (the others were already in the store).
BFJedi Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 I got to my Best Buy at 11pm and was 34th or so in line. Then about a half hour before 5am, there were like 60 people in front of me. The guy behind me was pissed because all the laptop vouchers were gone and he had waited 6 hours in the blistering teen-cold weather, just as I had. Best Buy only let 75 people in the store at a time to control the insanity inside the store. It didn't help. I had different employees negating each other on where the end of the line was. I got the eMachines PC, went out to my truck to unload and then had to get back on a line for the digital camera. The store would not let me checkout once. What brainiac decided to do it this way? So instead of a 15 minute experience, I had a 50 minute one! AND the second cash register I went through broke, so I waited about 10 minutes for it to come back up.
alimfp Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 Whoa, I feel for BFJedi - that's insane. I'd be writing one helluva letter to corp asking wth kind of shopping they wanted you to do? I imagine they lost some money due to these idiotic things going on.
KhakiBoy Posted November 25, 2005 Author Posted November 25, 2005 I got to BB at 5:00 and went to the back where my donuts, coffee, and personal shopper were waiting. I was out of there before 5:30. Awesome! Sounds like the PSA program was the way to go (if your store has it)! I had worked at the BB I was shopping at for 5 years, left last September. When the one manager came buy handing out tickets he saw me in line and just shook his head. I asked him if he'd be my PSA and he got quite a kick out of it.
KhakiBoy Posted November 25, 2005 Author Posted November 25, 2005 Man BFJedi, that sucks! It's stupid that they couldn't let you checkout everything at once. Hope you didn't put the computer in the back of a pickup truck. If so, I'm surprised it was still there when you got back with your second purchase! LoL
Floppy Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 The checkout wait at my best buy was two hours. The line was literally wrapped around the store.
Mike Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 I just got back from BB too. I was 5-7 too far back in the line to get a $380 laptop. I got there are 11:30pm. I did get an emachines voucher. Going into the computer department as the store opened. The employees told us to wait in a line off to the side. You could see all the emachine boxes just stacked there. Soon customers just started grabbing the boxes. I had a voucher though, so I wasn't worried. Waited about 5 mins to get to the front of my line and the guy asks how I want to pay. I say best buy bucks and bust out my bag of 300 (wanted to use them on the laptop). The guy doesn't know what the hell to do, so he calls a manager over. Manager says you can only use $70 and walks off. I already know very well I can use $300 so I start to protest. Luckily the store manager is walking by and we snag him down. He repeats the $70 max but I insist I know the rules and that is just not the case. I finally make him let me use the bestbuy bucks for the emachine package. Meanwhile, 20-30 people are just standing around watching this as they need to be rung up. Me and the cashier count out $160 in bestbuy bucks and he takes them and throws them in the register and starts to finish the transaction. Well, big problems come. After multiple calls to several managers and about 15 minutes passing by. We finally find out the system won't let him enter the emachines package and the monopoly money discount at the same time. He has to discount it manually. He does this but can only bring it down to $18.35 for some reason. I say fine, and I pay that with my debit card. I mention though that now I have given them too many best buy bucks and I need a few back. He makes me wait until the next cash transaction so he can get them out which is understandable. A couple people come through with CC and finally someone pays in cash. Its so hectic in there, he just graps a stack of BB bucks and hands them to me and says "Here, have a nice day" I only needed $9 back and he handed me $31. :) I ended paying $150 for the package with tax and a CA $8 recycling fee included.
dukes4440 Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 Well me and the misses get to BB @ 8:30pm and are #s 2&3 in line!!!! The next people get there about 9:15 and by 11:00 there are about150. You could tell when the first wave of CompUSA people started to line up @ 12:00 When they opened the doors @ 5 the line well over 3 Footballfields long.We got in and went to get our e-machines (2 for Santa Loot ) asked an associate where the 30" HDTV for 399 was and she said in Hometheater section.Well it wasn't I was sent up to the registers.Well then all 3 were gone! At the checkout I asked for a manager. I told him about being #2 in line since 8:30pm misdirected multiple times to cause me to lose out on the t.v.. He said he was sorry but there all gone. Well I just stand there staring at him and finally he ask me if i was going to really buy it and I said I had planned to walk out of the store with one! He says to wait a minute to let him check something. Not even a minute later he says that If I pay today that I can pick it up on the 29th!! So in my opinion BB Rocks!!!
scarface Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 Well we left here at 130, got to best buy at 2. I figured that with the temp being 0 with the wind that hardly noone would be there, i was wrong . Was like 150 ppl there. It was wrapped around the store. And ppl were just walking up in front of me and gettin in line(wasn't happy). I was talking to quite a few ppl and they couldn't believe all the ppl there at 2am with it being that cold. Well anyways i told them that one guy said they were gonna open 3am. lol that caught everyones attention, they were like where the hell did you hear this? I said a salesman, and what do ya know...3:05 comes by and the manager comes out and says... were are going to start lettin ppl in but only 10 at a time. It went pretty quick got in at 3:50, thankfully they had tickets for the camera. I think they still had them for everything. Then we had to wait in these lines inside on each side of the store till 4:55 then they said...ok employee's...time to go LIVE. And they moved the boxes out of the way and chaos began Every1 runnin everywhere and i just went to get the camera and got in the camera line but waited 40 minutes and i was 10th in line:mad: . But good god at the main checkout line, it went zig zag in the aisles throughout the whole store and this was at 5:30. But anyways it turned out to be a good first BF, i got that camera and the one at OD. I took pics with camera phone, i'll try to upload later i need sleep.
Nautical Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 Wait so scarface, They let much of the line IN the store at 3ish, but separated the store out so nobody could shop? Then at 5 they opened the store? Wow what a great idea so you don't get cold! It also stops the MAD rush at 5am to get in. I seriously thought I was going to get hurt when everyone started pushing in....im only 15 and pretty small for my age.
scarface Posted November 25, 2005 Posted November 25, 2005 Yeah i think that was the idea, because ppl were getting grumpy out in the cold lol. Is there any other best buys that ppl went to that did this? Kid in front of me in line said they did that last year.
BFJedi Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 Man BFJedi, that sucks! It's stupid that they couldn't let you checkout everything at once. Hope you didn't put the computer in the back of a pickup truck. If so, I'm surprised it was still there when you got back with your second purchase! LoL Actually I do drive a truck and I had to maneuver both boxes exactly right to make them fit through the cab door. I was worried on the second run through the store that someone was going to bust my windshield to steal my eMachines clearly visible through the windows in my truck.
BFJedi Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 My store adhered to the 'open at 5am' thing as published in the flyer. I think a mad cry of foul play would have been called by the people at 5am expecting there to still be doorbusters. My store had like 5 copies of season 3 of the 24 DVD set. Letting people in earlier than advertised gave the early line people an unfair advantage to clean out the store of stuff like that. I didn't get the season 3 box set of 24. I can't believe our store had like only 5 copies. That sucks! It wasn't for me, but for a present for my brother, but that still sucks that there was such a limited amount of DVDs (in prior years DVD numbers never seemed to be a problem for me).
Guest general41391 Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 The checkout wait at my best buy was two hours. The line was literally wrapped around the store.WOW! I was in and out of Best Buy in under 30 minutes
Nautical Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 My store adhered to the 'open at 5am' thing as published in the flyer. I think a mad cry of foul play would have been called by the people at 5am expecting there to still be doorbusters. My store had like 5 copies of season 3 of the 24 DVD set. Letting people in earlier than advertised gave the early line people an unfair advantage to clean out the store of stuff like that. I didn't get the season 3 box set of 24. I can't believe our store had like only 5 copies. That sucks! It wasn't for me, but for a present for my brother, but that still sucks that there was such a limited amount of DVDs (in prior years DVD numbers never seemed to be a problem for me).24 was available online...
andreadawn45 Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 I got to BB at 5:00 and went to the back where my donuts, coffee, and personal shopper were waiting. I was out of there before 5:30. Note that I did not get the doorbusters such as the computer, but got most of the other great AR deals and the mp3 player. went to walmart , got bikes and presents for my nieces and I was home by 6am. Off to walgreens at 7. I dont know why more people did not use the personal shopper. When I left there was still a line outside BB, and these are the people that did not get the doorbusters, I am sure. (the others were already in the store). I'm glad to see there was another BB using the PSA. We had it, I used it and it was FABULOUS!!!! I posted my story already on another thread, but it WAS WONDERFUL!!!! But not everyone in front of me used the PSA either, which I thought was odd. It saved us a TON of time! I could not be more happy about it!
illusion Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 Well guys i had an excellent time yesterday and this morning! I was planning on getting in line at 10pm but i was bored so me and a friend went and got in line a little bit earlier! I got to best buy at 5pm the day before and sat outside for 12 hours (Wearing my gottadeal shirt). But hey it paid off i was first in line, people were nice, got to see a crack head get arrested, i was on the news, and most importantly i got my plasma.
KhakiBoy Posted November 26, 2005 Author Posted November 26, 2005 Well guys i had an excellent time yesterday and this morning! I was planning on getting in line at 10pm but i was bored so me and a friend went and got in line a little bit earlier! I got to best buy at 5pm the day before and sat outside for 12 hours (Wearing my gottadeal shirt). But hey it paid off i was first in line, people were nice, got to see a crack head get arrested, i was on the news, and most importantly i got my plasma. Congrats! I couldn't imagine camping out that long. At least not up here where it was 11 degrees with a wind chill of 4 below! Glad you got your plasma!!
yogiyb Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 My BB experience was frustating!!! My brother-in-law (a computer programmer who does warranty work) STRONGLY advised against the EMachine as he says everything but the MBoard goes bad on those things. I got to BB anyway about 3am b/c it's the hardest place to get in and out once the store is open. Got in about 5:05, grabbed the DVDs and XM radio and zoomed over to MP3s for an IPOD. Well everyone was crammed in this little section getting the doorbuster MP3. The 1st clerk said you have to pay for MP3s in this line, so I went and got in line (about 10 people in front). Ten minutes later, 2nd clerk comes through the line and says if you're getting an IPOD, you have to get the 1st clerk to get the IPOD out of the case. So I get out of line, wait 15 minutes for the 1st clerk (who has given the case key away) to get the IPODs (I wanted the 30GB for me & the Shuffle for a niece). 1st clerk tapes the two IPODS together (more on this in a minute) and I get back in line (Now there's about 35 people in front of me. There's only 1 register and it's also being used for pay-as-you-go cell phones activation. Anyway after an hour in line, clerk #3 comes over and asked "Who's just waiting to get an IPOD"? About 3 of us go "Over here" and he gets the IPODS and tells us to follow him. At this time I had about 3 people in front of me. We follow clerk #3 and takes us to the main checkout area and puts us at the end of that line!!!!! We were LIVID. Even though it was moving quickly, we were near the front of the MP3 line. At this point if it wasn't for some price-matching I was getting on some DVDs I would have just chucked everything and left, but by that time it was nearly 7am. The young girl who finally checked me out said my total for $349. Well I knew the 30GB IPOD was $299 by itself so I just stared at her for a minute. Clerk #2 had taped the two IPODS together and she had only rung up the $99 shuffle. Although tempted, I told her of her mistake which bumped the total to over $500. B/C my bag was small the door guy didn't even look in saying "You're OK since the monitor didn't go off". Imagine BB being soooo careful by trying to limit where you can check out & human error almost gave away $300. My husband said for my hassle I should have just walked out the door but then again an IPOD is not worth a trip to the back room with the police. Luckily was no crowds was at WalMart (there are 3 within 10 miles of each other ) or KMart so I was able to make up lost time but I'm thinking BB will still get an email on everything from line management to its employees.
mugs Posted November 26, 2005 Posted November 26, 2005 Well guys i had an excellent time yesterday and this morning! I was planning on getting in line at 10pm but i was bored so me and a friend went and got in line a little bit earlier! I got to best buy at 5pm the day before and sat outside for 12 hours (Wearing my gottadeal shirt). But hey it paid off i was first in line, people were nice, got to see a crack head get arrested, i was on the news, and most importantly i got my plasma.Nice! :)
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